Maybe if you wish for it really hard… yeah no, it doesn’t work that way, Louise.

So Louise discovered last week that Vittorio was keeping secrets from her and Saito. Surely this weakness that Saito has will come into play, but just how soon? Not a lot of time left with 3 episodes to go, but, then again, this show has proven capable of accomplishing a hell of a lot in the span of 3 episodes.

Directly following last episode, Louise and Saito go off and have fun at the dance following Tabitha’s coronation, though Louise isn’t having a lot of fun due to the pope’s secret she heard. She’s clearly been worrying all night the morning after, showing bags under her eyes. No rest for the weary though, because Henrietta summons our couple along with Tifania, informing them that the pope has asked for them after discovering a town burned to the ground upon returning home. So the three make haste toward Romalia on Tabitha’s own familiar, Sylpheed.

Seriously, stop raising those death flags, Siesta.

They reach Aquileia – the town where Louise got kidnapped in the 2nd episode – and find it indeed burned to the ground. They’re quickly accosted by a bunch of dragons who they manage to fight off with the help of Julio who comes riding his own dragon. He informs them that all the dragons in the area have been acting this way, due to that large black dragon in the middle, the legendary Ancient Dragon (real creative with the naming there, guys). He takes them to the Romalian capital where Pope Vittorio is sending the knights to a valley to ambush the Ancient Dragon who’s on its way there.

What an elucidating explanation by Julio!

Upon meeting our heroes, Vittorio informs them that this is indeed the calamity of which he spoke in the very 1st episode, and that he has a plan: Tifania will use her void magic to keep the small dragons at bay, Vittorio himself will use his void magic to weaken the barrier around the Ancient Dragon, and Louise will use her Explosion to defeat it. Saito will help the latter 2 along the way, giving them the powerups necessary to take down this force.

Before the ambush, Louise reveals to Saito what she overheard from Vittorio last episode. Though Saito wavers, he decides that he will continue to fight regardless. The ambush starts off as planned, with Tifania successfully protecting the knights from the small dragons and Vittorio’s void magic – powered up by Saito – tearing away at the Ancient Dragon’s outer layer. But then the Ancient Dragon whips out its 3rd eye and forcibly takes control over the dragon upon which Vittorio is riding along with Julio and Saito, pulling them in closer to his mouth, ready to give them a blast of fire.

Or maybe if you’d kept that gun Julio gave you last time… or gotten the elves to dig out that combat plane when you were in the oasis.

This is where Saito’s talking sword steps in, asking him to use him to deflect the flames (he could do that? I don’t remember that from the 1st season). Unfortunately, it’s too much for him and, after telling him the standard “you’ve grown so much, it was great being your partner” speech, the sword shatters. Saito is blown off the dragon but gets caught by Louise and Tifania on Sylpheed.

Realizing that they’re out of options, Vittorio throws Julio off their dragon, telling him that he must live, and remains as he is sucked all the way into the Ancient Dragon’s mouth.

I normally don’t take screenshots with subtitles in them, but some of the lines in this episode were so hilariously stupid that I decided to leave them in. I loved Julio’s handwaving of Sylpheed’s immunity to the Ancient Dragon’s hypnosis. She’s not normal? No shit! That doesn’t actually explain anything! I was also wondering how they planned to use a valley as a chokepoint on a dragon, but they managed to explain that by showing that Ancient Dragon couldn’t fly. The legendary Ancient Dragon and flight isn’t one of his abilities, huh?

The show’s gotten right back into the swing of things, displaying that super-quick pacing it’s been known to have when not playing with the harem antics. I didn’t expect 2 characters to die off so quickly, one after the other like that! The sword, I’m sure I might have cared about more if I had seen the middle 2 seasons or if this season had spent any time at all showing off his character. So I was grateful that his death speech scene was a quick affair. I always did like his voice, at least.

Similar could be said about Vittorio and Julio – I guess Vittorio’s death flag was raised earlier in the episode when he was telling Julio how proud he was of him for the way he changed. Thing is, I didn’t get to see any of that. Based on the fact that Saito knew Julio before, I’m guessing these were events covered somewhere in those middle 2 seasons. At least we got to see Vittorio go out as a good guy. He seemed genuinely grateful and sorry that Saito was going to risk his life, and he seemed like a good father figure to Julio. Of course, he kind of threw Julio off the dragon from an incredible height right after telling him, “You must live!” but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he assumed Sylpheed would save him.

So what happens now with just 2 Void mages alive? I thought Joseph’s death in episode 3 was supposed to be followed up by another 4th one being born, but a newborn isn’t going to be of much help. I suppose it’ll come down to brute forcing it with Louise’s Explosion and Saito losing a big chunk of his life. Or maybe she’ll make a portal that sucks the Ancient Dragon onto one of the 2 moons (Valve doesn’t have a copyright on that idea!)? Or better yet, those elves that were such a big deal a couple episodes ago should come to the rescue, with that downed plane if possible. They wanted to kill Tifania to stop this calamity from happening, so it’s time that they put up or shut up.

Preview

Louise needs to tell Saito something really important. What in the world could that be?

They could’ve done a lot more with him. I don’t think they even mentioned his name in this season until this episode. I don’t remember much of him from season 1, but the talking weapon is a classic place to put a wise mentor figure, which this series skipped out on.